Parallels
by Zenog
Summary: Not all is always as it seems. A seemingly ordinary Riolu, truly a human? A single pokemon, shunned and hated by their entire hometown? A thief stealing that which should never, ever be stolen? Always remember to understand something completely before making a decision. Alternate timeline novelization of PMD Sky. Characters from other stories will appear. T to be safe.
1. Chapter 1

[Incoming Transmission]

I apologize! Please don't come hurt me! The plot bunnies have been having a party in my head! A college frat house party!

Anyway, I'm actually writing this story in two directions at once, and even though it gets confusing, at least I know where I'm going! And when the two pieces meet up, I get to give you one gigantic upload straight through to the end!

And yes, as the name (and my writing style) implies, this will draw on other stories of mine, most notably The Pendulum Effect with the character names. IT IS NOT RELATED TO THE PENDULUM EFFECT IN ANY WAY OTHER THAN THAT. However, other stories will be referenced, and the actual resolution-end-of-story-ness for another story is in the end of this one, so be on the lookout for that.

Anywho, here it is:

* * *

Chapter 1: On the Beach at Dusk

* * *

Pain. Excruciating, impossible-to-describe pain. That was all I could feel. Then… nothing.

* * *

At a beach, somewhere

* * *

'Ugh… Where am I?' I opened my eyes, before quickly shutting them due to brightness. Instead, I listened.

Water.

I was somewhere near water that was really bright. 'Well, that's something, I guess.' Then, I felt the ground around me.

Sand.

Alright, somewhere really bright with sand. But since there was water, it couldn't be a desert, so it must be a beach. Or maybe an oasis in the desert. 'I'm going to need to open my eyes again…' Before I could follow through with that course of action, I heard a voice.

"Oh my goodness! Are you okay?"

Something touched me, and I opened my eyes with a groan to see a vulpine face hanging over me. Predictably, I acted with shock, and sat up, unintentionally smashing our heads together in the process. The unanimous consensus on that particular action was "Ow…"

Recovering quickly, the strange six-tailed fox in front of me then proceeded to question me relentlessly, without any pauses in between for me to answer.

"What's your name? Where did you come from? What's your favorite color? How many siblings do you have? What was your seventh-cousin-thrice-removed's college roommate's best friend's mother's stepbrother's great-aunt's maiden name? How—"

"Wait, what was that last one?"

"Never mind. How did you end up unconscious out here?"

"Um… I don't know, actually. I just remember being in a lot of pain before waking up with your face in front of me."

We both chuckled nervously as we recalled that particular incident, before the Vulpix reiterated one of… her… that seems right, they smell female… before she reiterated one of her questions. "So, what's your name?"

"It is often considered common courtesy to introduce oneself before inquiring into the identity of others." I paused, realizing the way I had said that. "Well, not to sound rude or anything."

"Oh yeah! I forgot about that! I'm Kurama, nice to meet you! I'm going to become the greatest exploration team leader ever, and I'm also going to save the world at some point along the line, too." The now-identified Kurama held out her paw to me; inquiring for a third time now, "What's your name?"

I took the paw in my own and shook it as I introduced myself. "I'm Xi, and I can't remember a thing from before today, and have no idea what I want to do in my life. Nice to meet you as well."

Kurama then proceeded to spout off at high speeds while jumping with joy, "Great! Now I've got a new friend! Do you want to join me and make an exploration team? I couldn't make one before because there was no one else I knew to team up with, but now I've met you and I'm so happy because I've always wanted to have my very own exploration team and please, please, please say yes so that—"

I slapped my paw over her mouth before she could continue. "You're really hyperactive; I get that, but at least ask questions at a speed I can understand, okay?" A nod. "Okay, go." I presently took my hand off of the vulpine muzzle, before Kurama began speaking again, albeit at a slower, more serious, and controlled pace.

"I'm glad that you can be my friend, and I was wondering if you would be willing to form an exploration team with me. Due to the current number of people willing to join me, I have not been able to form a team, though it has been my dream for quite some time now. Now that you are here, I was hoping that, with your help, I might be able to form a team."

I pondered the proposition for a minute, before nodding slowly to Kurama, causing her to start jumping around in childish joy, which in turn caused me to facepaw. Five seconds later, I lifted my paw saw a strange blue bat and a floating purple ball flying away into a nearby cave as Kurama looked on in horror. Obviously, I'd missed something big.

"What just happened?"

Kurama just stood there for a second, unmoving, before breaking into tears and collapsing on the sand. "My treasure! They stole my personal treasure!"

I glanced between my new friend and the cave that the thieves had disappeared into, and resisted the urge to facepaw again. "So, they came up, took away this personal treasure, and ran—erm, flew off, and you did nothing? What happened to the hyperactive kit that I knew who was jumping with joy at my willingness to be her friend a few seconds ago?" I somehow found myself doing a strange pose while delivering my pep talk. "We're an exploration team now! We stop bad people, protect the innocent, and save the world! So let's go in there, stop the bad people, and get back your stolen item!" I picked up the sniveling vulpine and slung her onto my back, before marching off into the cave to find two certain undesirable characters and beat them up.

* * *

Beach Cave, B5F

* * *

I had finally managed to carry Kurama down to the bottom floor of this stupid maze, and I plopped her down on the ground, all the while glaring at the two flying weirdoes at the other end of the room.

"Alright, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. The easy way is that you give us back the item, and then we give you a nice pummeling for stealing. The hard way is we give you a nice pummeling for stealing, and then keep beating you up until you give back the item, to the point of prying it out of your cold, dead fingers if necessary. Understood?"

Despite my own being really short and the two troublemakers not having any fingers to speak of in the first place, I still managed to intimidate them quite well, and they quickly dropped the item and fled towards the exit. As they left, I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Well, I'm glad that worked out! I don't think I'd have been able to beat them up that easily, seeing as I can't remember a thing."

I looked around the room I was in, and saw that there was nobody else in the room other than my unconscious compatriot.

"…And I'm talking to nobody."

* * *

Beach Cave, B4F

* * *

Kurama managed to rouse herself from her catatonic state as I was carrying her out of the cave, and suddenly started squirming to free herself.

Her protests grew louder rapidly. "Wait! Why are we leaving? What about my treasure?"

I silently held up said treasure, and her struggling died down instantly.

"Oh… Okay…"

* * *

The Beach,

At dusk

* * *

I plopped Kurama back down on the sand in front of me, along with her Personal Treasure (for all it had just put us through, and all it would later, it deserved to be a proper noun). "Alright, now, where were we? Ah, yes, exploration team formation, right?"

"Hai," Kurama nodded, "I think so."

"Hai?"

"Sorry, dialect differences from where I was born. It means yes."

"Got it. So…" I scratched my head in thought. I knew I was forgetting something… "Ah! Of course! What should we name our team?"

"…"

"…"

"…I got nothing."

I sighed, "Yeah, same here. I'm sure we'll figure something out. Anyway, where can we go to get registered as a team?"

"Well… we could go to the Wigglytuff Guild… but most of them don't like me…"

"Then screw them! We don't need to register to be awesome! We can do this on our own!" I found myself doing the same pose as I had when I gave my motivational speech a mere hour earlier in the same exact spot. 'I hope this doesn't become habit…'

I shook myself out of those disturbing thoughts, and turned back towards Kurama. "So! First off, shelter! Do we have somewhere to stay? After we figure that out, how about food and water? Do we have those?"

She blinked at me slowly, as if not comprehending what I'd said. "Wait, make a unaffiliated rescue team? Can we do that?"

"No idea! But it sounds like a great idea to me! For some reason, I get the feeling that the guild takes a lot of the money that you earn on jobs for itself, so this way, we get more money to do stuff!"

Another slow blink, before a huge grin spread across her face. "That sounds like a great idea! I've got shelter and water in my house on the far side of the town, and food shouldn't be too hard to get… maybe…" She hung her head in a dismayed fashion.

"It's not just the guild that doesn't like you, is it?"

'Ooh, a cringe. There are definitely a lot of people that don't like her. The whole town, maybe, excluding a couple people, I'd guess.'

"I'll take that as a yes. So what level of widespread dislike are we talking here? Basic ignoring, shunning, getting thrown out of shops, open hatred, open violence, organized mobs―"

'Another cringe. That is definitely an extremely bad level of dislike.'

"Okay, so it's really bad. Alright, show me the way to the house, and tomorrow I'll get a few supplies and find a job for us to work on."

"H-hai. Follow me."

As we took off from the beach, I saw small drops of water intermittently hitting the ground near Kurama. 'She's crying…'

* * *

Eight minutes later,

Sharpedo Bluff

* * *

By the time we reached town, Kurama had stopped crying. Instead, she plastered on a mask of indifference to her features. However, having seen her without it, I saw the pain in her eyes. It was the pain not of deep longing, but of fear. It wasn't just any normal fear, either, but pure, unadulterated fear that something unspeakably horrible was going to happen to her. It brought a shadow over my heart that anyone would try to harm someone as pure as her. Then and there, as we walked through the town, I vowed to protect her from that fear.

After leaving the town, she relaxed quite a bit, eventually dropping the mask when we reached a large bluff. She gave a small, sad smile to me as we reached the edge, then turned to a large rock.

"It may not be much," she sighed, "but it's the home that I have."

With that, she pressed her paw to a small indent in the rock, and I heard a soft click. The rock slowly and silently moved upwards on hidden hinges, revealing a stairway going down into the bluff. I let out a low whistle.

"That… is some impressive technology there."

Kurama smiled slightly―a real, genuine, happy smile―at the praise. "It's been here for longer than I've lived here. I actually found the place by accident one day when…" Her head drooped again as she trailed off, and I placed a comforting paw on her shoulder.

"It's okay; you don't need to talk about it until you want to."

She gave a small shake, before leading the way down the stairs. "I'm sorry," she called back over her shoulder, "it's just that it brought back some bad memories that I'd rather nobody knew about, that's all."

As soon as I had stepped down the stairs, the rock started to slowly move back into place, settling over the top of the stairs with barely a whisper of noise. The stairs were perfectly carved angles at one point, but they sagged slightly in the middle where countless feet had worn them through the ages. 'For something to have been worn down by walking… how long has this been here?'

I was brought out of my musings about that stairs by the stairs, or rather by the huge room they opened onto. The view over the ocean visible between the jagged spires lining the rim of the cave was nothing short of spectacular, even with the setting sun shining right in your face. In fact, that probably enhanced the effect of it even more, with the bright reflection on the water looking like a pathway to your dreams… or… something… equally sentimental.

Speaking of water, a beautiful spring of clear water bubbled up from the rocks at the back of the cavern, making a small pool, before draining out over the edge into the ocean below. I stood back and marveled at the room. "It's beautiful…" I breathed.

She smiled again, this time a huge, meowth-in-the-larder kind of grin. "Well, like I said," she giggled, "it may not be much, but it's home."

* * *

...And there you have it! I hope you all like it, and R&R and all that jazz and stuff.

[Transmission Terminated]

(P.S. Worship Log-sama, for he is the almighty savior of the ninja!)


	2. Chapter 2

[Incoming Transmission]

Shorter chapter than normal today, folks, but my little sister has been nagging me for almost a week about this (and she's still nagging as I write this thingy here at the beginning). I'd say that my muse was on leave, but that's not true. It was working on the other end of the story (and screwing with my brand-new ESVS PC version console commands) instead of this chapter.

However, I've written what will probably be the most emotionally draining chapter in the entire story (multiple character deaths, so don't get too attached to anybody! :D), so now I can focus more on these chapters at the beginning! Yay!

So, without further ado...

* * *

Chapter 2

* * *

"A lost item? Really?"

"Well, I thought we should try something easy for our first job. We can't just skip learning how to be an exploration team and go straight to saving the world."

"But… it's a lost item!"

"One that the client would literally die without! Kurama, all spoinks need their pearl's added weight to keep bouncing, and their heart is kept beating by the kinetic energy of their bouncing! We are saving a life by taking this job!" I fixed her with a glare, arms crossed, silently daring her to contradict me.

She was quiet for a moment, then relented to my glare. "…Alright, but let's be quick about it. The sooner we finish the easy stuff, the sooner we can get to hard stuff like capturing criminals and saving the world, right?"

I sighed as we started up the stairs out of the cave. "Well, that's not exactly what I was going for, but it's close enough. Come on, let's go find that pearl."

* * *

Drenched Bluff

* * *

"I swear, if I see another one of those stupid little bell things, I'm going to burn it."

"How are you going to manage that, exactly? I'm the one who can breathe fire."

I turned a sharp glare on my partner, the air around me visibly darkening. "I. Will. Burn. It."

She shrank back from my gaze in abject terror of the aura I was giving off. "Okay."

We stormed (well, I stormed, Kurama just followed normally) through the rest of the dungeon, and reached the top without seeing another chingling. Apparently, they overheard me talking to Kurama earlier. The other inhabitants also seemed to generally avoid us as well, and that was just fine with me. I probably would've figured out how to burn something by punching it if my patience was stretched any farther.

Once at the top, we saw that there was nobody there. In fact, there was nothing there but an extremely shiny round object.

"Ooh! Shiny!"

Kurama reached up and swatted me in the head. "Really? 'Ooh! Shiny!' is the best you can come up with? How about 'Let's go get that pearl so we can save Spoink's life and get some money!'? I honestly like the sound of that better. Especially the money part."

I turned to look at her with mock hurt in my eyes. "How could you say that? Of course I was thinking about the client and getting inordinate amounts of money! I just really like shiny objects!"

Kurama hung her head in defeat. There really wasn't anything she could say to that, and I knew that she knew it. "Fine, but we'd better finish this up before our client dies."

I gave a small chuckle at that. "Well, I might have over exaggerated that bit slightly to get you into the idea. The pearl is more of a counterbalance to allow them to control their bouncing and also a psychic focal point. It won't actually kill them to lose it, but they would be pretty messed up without one."

An annoyed glint appeared in her eyes, and I started backing away slowly. "Oh? Slight over exaggeration, you say? Well, don't worry, I'm sure that brutal maiming won't hurt too much. Well, as long as the first thing I hit is something that incapacitates your central nervous system temporarily."

"Now Kurama, there's no need to do anything drastic! They really will die if they stop bouncing!"

Suddenly, the oppressive feeling in the air vanished, and Kurama smiled. "Okay! At least you weren't lying completely. However!" The oppressive feeling returned as she pounced on me, pinning my throat under a claw. "If you ever lie to me about anything to do with death again, I will make you wish you never had the misfortune to do so."

I simply nodded, not exactly trusting myself to speak without stuttering.

The feeling disappeared once again. "Good! Now let's go get our hard-earned cash!"

* * *

Treasure Town,  
Wigglytuff's Guild, B1F

* * *

"Thank you two so much for finding my pearl for me! I don't know how much longer I could've lived to be without it!"

Kurama and I just looked at Spoink askance. Kurama finally worked up the courage to ask the question on both of our minds. "Umm… What is that on your head?"

"Hmm? This? Oh, this is my neighbor, Shellder."

A muffled "Hiya!" could be heard from the pokémon on Spoink's head.

"He offered to help me with the counterbalance issue until somebody got my pearl back." The porcine bouncing pokémon then leaned in and said in a conspiratorial whisper, "Also, we heard that it increases your brain power to have shellder toxins in your head, and stronger brainpower means stronger psychic stuff! But don't let anyone else know."

"…Anyway," I began, trying my hardest not to run away screaming, "do we get rewards for the job?"

Suddenly, Spoink was back at a reasonable distance from me again. "Oh! Yes! The rewards! Shellder! Get the bag while I put my pearl back on!"

Shellder suddenly dropped off of Spoink's head, quickly leaving. As Shellder got the bag, the pearl levitated up off the ground and onto Spoink's head. Shortly after Shellder returned with the bag―one not unlike the one that I carried for our team―items started floating out.

"Here! Two reviver seeds and a red gummi!"

At the mention of the gummi, I saw Kurama's eyes light up. No, literally, they lit up like a pikachu rave party. I sidestepped away from her slightly, as did the client and his friend.

"Umm… does she normally do that?"

I shrugged slightly. "No idea. Actually, I just met her yesterday, so we're still getting to know each other."

"You formed an exploration team with someone you just met yesterday? Are you insane?"

Spoink bounced and hit Shellder on the head. "Shellder! Be nice to the poor guy! He did help us!" He turned back to me with a small smile on his face. "Oh, and one more thing, here is 2000 poké."

Kurama's eyes suddenly went back to normal as we both did a double take. "Really?" I asked. "That much?"

"Oh, please, compared to the price of my pearl, this is nothing! Thank you once again for helping me!" Spoink said cheerfully as he hopped up the ladder and out of the Guild building.

We stood there in silence for a few moments before Kurama spoke up.

"That is probably the strangest person I have ever laid eyes upon, and that's really saying something."

I quirked an eyebrow. "Oh, and who would be next on that list?"

Kurama's face fell, and I realised I had touched a topic that was not to be spoken about.

"I don't want to talk about it."

I winced at the icy tone of her voice. "Never mind, let's just go back home."

* * *

Half an hour later,  
Sharpedo Bluff

* * *

"I killed him."

The statement was startling to say the least, and completely unexpected for during our dinner. I was caught off guard so much that I actually chocked on my apple for a couple seconds.

"Excuse me, what?"

"The strangest person I know. I killed him."

Her statement confused me. "Know? But if you killed him, wouldn't it be knew?"

"It should be, but it's not. That's why he's the strangest person I've ever met. Everyone else died in the explosion, and he did too, but he's still alive."

"Do you want to talk about it? It can help you cope with the pain."

"No. I don't want to talk about it, I didn't want to talk about it when he came and found me after the accident, and I probably won't ever want to."

"Something about the way you say that makes me think that you're going to."

Kurama let out a heavy sigh. "I know, I'm going to tell you. But I'm only telling this story once, so pay close attention."

"Why wouldn't I?"

"I don't know why you wouldn't pay attention, but it's important anyway. It's the reason I don't use fire attacks."

"Excuse me? You don't use fire attacks? But you're a fire type!"

"I know! Now shut up and let me tell the story so you can understand why.

"Now, I don't want to sound cliché, but it really was a day like any other, and I really do remember it like it was yesterday. I was walking down the main road, coming home from the beach…" Kurama trailed off, and I waited silently and patiently for her to continue.

At length, she took a deep breath, as if steeling herself for pain, and resumed her narrative. "Back then, there was no town square, but that where it happened. A rock came out of nowhere and hit me. I just kept walking, but more stones started coming for me from every direction. It was painful, but it wasn't anything I couldn't handle. Well, until they started using actual attacks.

"There was so much water. That's about all I remember. There was also a little fire mixed in with it, and I absorbed all that I could just to keep myself from dying in the water. What I wouldn't have given for an Afire Collar or a Fiery Globe that day… maybe then nobody would've gotten hurt…"

* * *

Like? Dislike? More importantly, are you ready for the story of what exactly happened to Kurama?

Kind of cliff-hanger-y, right? Anyway, R&R!

[Transmission Terminated]


End file.
